Since the inception of capitalism, human society began to experience recession/depression in almost every generation (30-40 years). Many economists tried to understand this economic cycle. Some believed that it was uncurable, therefore declared the ultimate death of capitalism and imagined how to achieve that. Some believed that there was technical problem with the system, and as a result, only patchwork is needed to fix the problem. Still others decreid the non-capitalist factor that intervened into the otherwise perfect system, messing with the smooth transactions of the market and causing all the trouble. According to them, the best way is to remove all those annoying interventions, particularlly from the government.
No matter who's right, people are the ones who suffer from the consequences of recession/depression. As I mentioned before, a lot of young people in both China and the U.S. are experiencing this for the first time in their lives, my self included. The way I see it, if it is not time for capitalism to die, then we have to figure out a way to move forward. Basicaly, there're two traditional ways to get out: war or innovation. Malthusian or not, the fundamental contradiction was always that how much human can squeeze out of the earth to make their living. Capitalism mandates a certain profit in this process, therefore if the resource is constrained, we have to either fight it out, or invent something new to make more resources available. After WWII, people realized that since we've made war so powerful that another major war may very well wipe ourselves out of the planet. Thus, innovation and negotiation became the only method to solve the problem.
Unfortunately, not all innovations are good, especially finacial engineering, which is basically alchemistry at best. If war is not a viable approach, then we have two options here: either retreat to a lower level of equilibrium or advance to a higher level of living by inventing a new form of economy.
For our recession/depresison generation, a good job nowadays is hard to come by. The volume of disillusionment is high and the expectation for the future is dropping. But if past depressions didn't lead to armageddon, we have no reason to believe that this one will. It will be painful, but it also gives us an invaluable opporunity to reform and improve our economy and society.
I am against extreme environmentalism, just like I am against any form of extremism. However, I believe that the time has come to a point that only green revolution can haul us out of current crisis. Maybe it sounds like a banality, but Warren Buffet's portfolio investment is quite examplifying. If we succeed, we then will be a generation of future generation saviors. ..
